Ted Bauer's blog. I write about leadership, work, business – and try to figure out my own life too.

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The Utah Jazz are just terrible. What happened here?

The Utah Jazz are 0-8. They weren’t expected to be very good — or any good, depending on how you look at it — but they’re just plain turrible through the first couple of weeks. They’re losing by an average of 14 points per game; the last six games, they’ve lost by double digits (the last loss is embedded above). Meanwhile, the Suns — who were supposed to be historically, possibly-they’re-just-tanking awful — are 5-2 and leading the Pacific Division; their head coach is Jeff Hornacek, who is likely fairly familiar to most Jazz fans.

The Jazz were bad in 2004-2005 (26 wins), but haven’t been last in the Western Conference since 1979-80. Since 1983-84, they’ve only missed the playoffs five times. That’s actually kinda remarkable if you think about it. They contended for a playoff spot for the better part of the stretch run last year; that would mean that in almost 30 years, they would have missed the playoffs a scant four times. They do kind of have an ‘always the bridesmaid, never the bride’ vibe going on, though.

Jazz fans are already trying to predict their first win; their schedule isn’t kind. They play an improved Pelicans team, an elite Spurs team, two against an elite Warriors team, the Pelicans again, the Mavericks … (that’s a possible win) … then OKC, the Chicago Bulls, two against Phoenix, Houston, and then Sacramento. It’s theoretically possible that their first win might not come until that SAC game, which would keep them winless through December 7th (I missed an @Portland game in there that they might also win). It’s doubtful the run will last that long, but … through eight games, this is a historically bad team.

In all likelihood, this season will go up in flames, Ty Corbin will be the fall guy, they’ll go get a hotshot young coach (or a grizzled veteran ala George Karl, who has logged time in that part of America coaching the Nuggets), have a top-three pick, get someone good, try and re-sign Hayward, and go from there. The team will likely be back in playoff contention within 2-3 years, pending moves and injuries. It does seem like the natives are restless, though: